


Chance

by doublejoint



Series: peachtober 2020 [15]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:34:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27063490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doublejoint/pseuds/doublejoint
Summary: Bellemere flirts. Genzo is Genzo.
Relationships: Bell-mère/Genzo (One Piece)
Series: peachtober 2020 [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1953295
Comments: 3
Kudos: 3





	Chance

**Author's Note:**

> #peachtober day 15: Core

The first time Bellemere says she’ll pay him back with her body, Genzo is 22 and Bellemere is 14. She’s not nearly old enough to be saying such thins, but she’s not nearly old enough to be smoking that pack of cigarettes she’s just stolen, but one is already hanging from her mouth.

“Cigarettes are bad for you. And so is stealing.”

“But Genzo,” she says, in a way she thinks sounds seductive, but thankfully, just sounds ridiculous. 

“You little thief.”

“If you really want to take them back, you’ll have to get them from me,” Bellemere says, and all of a sudden she’s off and running.

Genzo’s got longer legs and better stamina, but she’s got a head start, and once she’s in the orange grove he’ll never find her. Her laughter floats out from the trees, and he looks up in every one of them--sometimes, he thinks, he catches a flash of pink, but it’s just a trick of the afternoon light off the leaves and the fruits, growing heavier. 

Genzo takes responsibility for the stolen cigarettes at the store and pays the owner back--someone has to, though they probably already know it was her.

* * *

By all accounts, Bellemere is an upstanding marine, quick on her feet and a good shot with a rifle. Genzo doubts that she follows every single order to the letter, but then feels bad for doubting. People change. And at any rate, she’s following the orders enough to get a good reputation, and to reflect back well on Cocoyashi village. 

And then she comes back, two kids in tow, no money saved up and no job prospects except for the orange trees. And, responsible mother, marine woman, adult, and everything else she is, she’s still got the same core beneath it all, the same fighting spirit, the same apparent lack of worry about her debts and about making ends meet. 

She picks up a pack of cigarettes in the store with her kids in tow, offers the shopkeeper to pay him with her body, only this time when she bats her eyelashes, her face and voice to make Genzo feel a little bit uncomfortable, for a moment--but no.

* * *

He looks after the girls when Bellemere’s tending the oranges; sometimes Nojiko goes along and watches, running after her, but Nami’s still too young. She grabs at his pinwheel and shrieks with laughter, and sometimes she misses and grabs at Genzo’s mustache. She chews on his shirt, on an old piece of orange rind--Genzo would have thought it too bitter for kids, but she won’t let him take it away.

When he tells Bellemere, she just shrugs, adjusting Nojiko on her hip. “She seems to like it. Why worry if she’s happy?”

Maybe she’s right. She’s doing a better job as a parent than Genzo ever would have thought--and, again, he feels bad for having underestimated her. 

“Want to stay for dinner?” says Bellemere, with a wink. “And afterward?”

Genzo’s face heats up; Nojiko laughs, even though she clearly doesn’t understand it. She’s still an absolute menace.

He won’t even think of considering that offer, or thinking about how, despite being clearly in jest, despite there being no chance in hell of him taking her up on it, she’d made the offer anyway.

* * *

“Would you ever go back?”

Bellemere looks off at the orange grove. The flowers are blooming; the smell carries on the wind. Genzo sneezes.

“To the Marines? Nah. I’m glad I did it, but Nami and Nojiko need me here.”

“What about when they’re grown?”

“That’s a long way off,” says Bellemere. “You that eager to get rid of me?”

Genzo refuses to fall for the bait. He crosses his arms over his chest. 

“Here I was, thinking we’d grow old together, put a lot of pinwheels on the house, eat oranges for every meal…”

Genzo can’t look at her. It’s still, he thinks, in jest, but a lot more serious than she usually is. He hasn’t gotten this far not thinking about what she means for nothing, and yet--it’s there if he wants it, when he wants it, maybe. He swallows. Then he looks at her. An unlit cigarette dangles from between her fingers. Her smile is soft, a little teasing, but not that much.

* * *

Nojiko won’t cry in front of Nami, and Nami won’t cry in front of Nojiko, but they’ll both cry on Genzo. They’re stubborn, just like their mother, but it would hurt too much--for them, for him--to say that right now. And at least they’re comfortable enough with him to cry on his shoulder and soak through his shirt, to not kick him out of the house when he waits there for Nami to get back home from another day of working for those pirates. 

Bellemere would murder Genzo if she knew he let this happen, but he can’t see an alternative or a way out. Maybe that’s why her spirit hasn’t come from the afterlife and dragged him back with her yet. His best, as a parental figure, is not that good; it’s not as good as Bellemere’s was. 

Nojiko spins the pinwheel on his hat sometimes, in the still air of the room--she’s tall enough now to reach it when he’s sitting down. He wonders if she’s doing it for herself, or for him.

* * *

Genzo can’t help but wonder, sometimes, what would have happened if he’d taken one of the chances Bellemere had given him, and done something with it. Perhaps she would have survived, and they’d be happy now--but no, she would have gone after Arlong anyway, because he would have made Nami work for him, regardless of the situation. She wouldn’t have been able to live with it, would have seen no other way. 

Maybe things would have been difficult anyway; maybe he’s idealizing the past, the prospect of something that never happened. It looks glorious and romantic, like a long summer sunset, in his mind, but they would have disagreed and said things they’d regret later, or maybe it wouldn’t have worked at all, after years of not happening outside of their minds. 

Nojiko finds him at Bellemere’s grave, and she brings oranges. There’s a good crop this year. 


End file.
